


Don't Mess with a Creeper's Nest

by DarthSuki



Series: Daft Punk (EDM) and You [7]
Category: Deadmau5 (Musician), EDM, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Creeper!Deadmau5, Creepermau5 - Freeform, F/M, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Researcher!Reader, really - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 19:52:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1755639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthSuki/pseuds/DarthSuki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The reader's on a routine stay out in the field to continue some minor observations, since it's mating season for the wildlife park's Creeper colony. However, while taking some notes about their particularly favorite subject Joel as he guards a nest, they find themselves in a bit of trouble when they are found by the very angry owner of said nest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Mess with a Creeper's Nest

General

Name: y/n  
Eye Color: e/c  
Hair color: h/c  
Hair Length: h/l

Gender

Subject Pronoun (He/She/Ect): s/p  
Object Pronoun (Him/Her/Ect): o/p  
Possessive Pronoun (His/Hers/Theirs/Ect): p/p  
Possessive Adjective (His/Her/Their/Ect): p/a  
Reflexive pronoun (Himself/Herself/Ect): r/p

* * *

 

_Day 12_

_The subject is very perplexing. Regardless of sub-species differences, there hasn’t yet been any sort of interest or attempt that would lead to a mating bond for the season. It’s already been two weeks and there has been only one extended, close interaction between him and another of the group._

_Despite excited assumptions that he found a mating partner, it was instead found that the subject he was interacting with was tag number 2056, nicknamed Hera. Upon further observation it was found that the subject in question (tag number 1414), Joel, has been caring for Hera’s nest while she and her mate, Tyler (tag number 2037) forage for food. This is the fourth time this season that the behaviour has been displayed. - y/n_

 

It isn’t as if your interest is unjustified. In fact, you’re fairly surprised that you’re the only one who carries it to such a degree of passion, out of the entire group you work with. The subject--Joel as you’ve come to call him--is the only known member of his subspecies. With a human-like build and such an odd adornment of ears to a far more circular head, you’ve been certain that there is few to none other like him; at least, none within the area of the wildlife preserve.

How can others just not find this data as fascinating as you do?

The question is a passing wonder, just as it always is, as you make a note down in the notebook. It’s crumbled and worn from months of use and observations and you really do need to consider getting another one. Water stains adorn many of the pages (the one’s that aren’t half-torn from the binding), and the back cover is completely missing. At least the pen doesn’t bleed through the page that you’re writing the recent entry in, leaving blots of ink in the oddest of places with your dotted i’s.

_It still cannot be determined what the reason is for this odd display of selfless behaviour, especially as Joel is still without a mate for the season._

The words are a bit on the messy side, but all you care about is that they are readable. They’ll be transferred into your laptop back at camp, and then to the database of the research facility upon returning in a few days. And then the cycle between being in the center and being in the field continues.

In what could only be called a manner of bad timing, the observed Creeper turns his head in your direction just as your shifting jostles the leaves beside your legs. A curse huffs beneath your breath, and instantly you’re frozen solid. Joel nearly glares in your direction, eyes as dark and open, before a low hissing noise begins emanating from his mouth.

_First warning is almost alway hissing. It’s usually a soft, high sound that’s been found to come from a specialized organ in their throat, and doesn’t distinctively require the inhalation or exhalation of air over said organ (assumed to be close to the vocal cords). They tend to make the noise when they feel threatened, and continue until they calm down._

This earlier, basic information learned nearly a year ago flies through your head, trying in some odd, instinctive way to calm down the frazzled nerves from several days’ worth of sleep deprivation.

The hissing continues for nearly a full minute. When Joel seems to feel satisfied with the lack of a threat around the nest that he’s watching (nest-sitting? You’ve never exactly witnessed this behavior in any other mating pairs), the noise stops. Relief flows through your chest, and you make a mental note to be more careful about the noise generated when suddenly--

_**HIIIISSSSSSS** _

The noise behind you is as frightening as it is surprising, forcing your body to wrench around in response. Thick horror flickers across your expression as you already know what’s behind you. With the carelessness of your hiding, it shouldn’t actually be a surprise. Nevertheless, the giant orbs of onyx black stare straight into your soul the moment you look back.

The angered, ferocious expression of another Creeper mere feet away from you is enough to drain whatever sense of life there is from you. Endermen are horrifying, it’s the top opinion for nearly anyone you ask, but the Creepers are a very, very close second--and it’s easy to understand why when you’re caught face to face with one that’s pissed off.

Panic streaks through your veins even harder as you realize that it’s Hera. The number of her tag is not at all visible, but the soft scar across the left side of her face is more than enough to identify her from when she got in a particularly nasty fight with a spider. And of course, that realization brings about absolute horror to your core.

You are right next to her nest. It’s fucking mating season and you are right next to her nest. Words and phrases of complete stupidity on your part fly through your brain, ranging from your absolute idiocy to hide in such a stupid spot, and absolute ignorance for not being more careful in being around a Creeper’s nest during the mating season.

The attempt to calm her down with raised hands and shushing noises is feeble, but it’s not as if you can stand up and run. Tyler is probably somewhere close if not already attuned and honing in on his mate’s fervent hissing, and he’s been known to bite as much as explode when angered.

“Calm down, please calm down!” You cry out in a last-ditch effort, hands extended and palms exposed in what you hoped was a gesture of submissiveness. Hera shows you no mercy, stepping forward and hissing even louder, her expression nearly enraged--it terrifies you with how dark it is. Her eyes are wide, mouth gaping, and you know that while there is few conventional teeth in that maw, she can still rip a limb off if she wanted.

You mumble out a few more attempts at words, if you can even technically call those half-broken stutters words. She probably can’t literally understand them anyway, since she doesn’t seem to be responding with anything other than rage. But that’s not exactly a factor that your brain seems to care about, instead bent on making sure she doesn’t attack--they are nearly twice as dangerous during the mating season, and more than strong enough to cause some major damage, if not entirely lethal.

So, perhaps it’s understandable in this situation why you’re the only one out in the field doing this. Beautiful reminder.

When you try to make a half-step backwards to gain some more distance between you and the angry Creeper, the back of your boot catches on some sort of root. Without a moment to truly feel the sheer panic of this wonderful encounter, you’re suddenly tumbling backwards and through the bush.

Branches scratch and catch on the sleeves of your coat, tangle in your h/l h/c hair. Your worry about the papers scattering about the forest floor from your journal is muted only barely by the terror that parades through your chest.

“Hera!” The word is weak in your throat as you land on your ass on the hard ground, any sense of bravery lost. “Hera it’s me! Y/n! R-remember? I’m not--I’m not gonna hurt your nest!” Papers crumple as you back up, heels digging into the dirt to gain some sort of foothold to push yourself back with any distance you can get.

For a blissful, beautiful moment you’ve pushed yourself as far back from the bush that you think she’s calming down, but only for it to shatter apart when the Creeper merely moves through the bush to advance on you again. If anything, her expression is even worse. Her body is taut and tense, ready to spring forward and pounce upon you-- probably tear you to ribbons.

Oh god.

“Hera!” You plead uselessly, hands in the air again and feet shuffling your body backwards little by little with every word. “Just--just calm down. I’m not--Your nest is fine, I’m not going to--to hurt it….” Hands are shaking. Your hands are completely quaking with the adrenaline pumping through your system. She’s closing in now, just a few feet away from your digging boots.

Her mouth is gaping to reveal the sharp protrusions inside her jaw that acted like fangs to grab and hold prey. Run. Your brain screams at you, louder and louder as your only option before you have those damn fangs sinking into your arm or shoulders.

Just push your ass up and fucking /RUN/.

Limbs scramble when the thoughts finally click into place. The air thickens to a hard viscous liquid that your lungs almost wheeze to take in, either from the fear or adrenaline pumping through your veins. After digging your fingers into the soft soil below you, your body pushes itself up and-

Again with the grace of flailing prey, the unnoticed obstruction of the nest--the object of all this chaos--makes you trip once more back onto your ass. The sticks and various grasses poke painfully into your legs, back and arms. Quite smooth and entirely smart, considering how easy it would have been just to take a moment to look at what was pushing against your back before getting up.

Nevertheless, you’ve never been so fucked. The hissing is piercing through your ears to the point that you just want to cover them with your hands and try your luck to see if you can get out of this with at least one limb left intact. Didn’t you calculate the damage done by a close-range Creeper explosion when you started this damn job?

Seconds tick by even after you shut your eyes and curl up into a silly, poor attempt at a ball (like that would offer any sort of protection to your body). At first, you think that maybe time’s just slowed down from the panic and fear flickering through your nerves. But, slowly, you realize that time’s still moving perfectly well. And, as it just so happens to seem, you’re not dead and all your limbs are still firmly attached to your body.

It’s when you finally open your eyes that you see the reason why you are still very much alive. And--

Hey, when did the hissing stop?

“...what…?” Lips are moving before you can stop them, as if your confusion needs to be filtered through in some manner so your brain doesn’t just blue screen from the level of biochemicals it’s endured for the past few minutes alone. “What’s going--oh--Joel?!”

You’ve long-since forgotten that he’s been here the entire time (oh god). It’s actually rather amazing he hasn’t responded any sooner.

There isn’t any hissing trailing through the air anymore, but it’s not noiseless. Instead there’s a bit of a chittering sound between both the offended Hera (who has not taken her eyes from you just yet) and the (slightly confused? comforting?) Joel sitting in the nest barely an arm’s length beside you. He’s looking from you to his fellow Creeper, making noises and tilting his head in a manner of definite communication.

If fear wasn’t still much of an issue you’d be fervently writing this all down in your notebook...which is still scattered about the ground. If you survive this ordeal, then you can get it all down in your journal once you get back to camp. But, first things first.

You can’t tell all that much from merely watching them and listening to their sounds moving back and forth between them. At the very least it seems that Joel has calmed the angered, possible mother-to-be down to a level were the worst she’s giving you is a strained glare. It beats the threat of being ripped to shreds, and you have this almost overwhelming need to thank Joel for whatever he’s done to stop her advances.

In fact, that’s what you finally do, getting your heart to slow and your body to stop shaking so much. Turning your face over however yields a much closer Joel than you had realized only moments ago. He hums in some way, leaning close enough that he can--oh, what is he doing?

You don’t realize that you’ve vocally asked that until he’s making a soft chirring noise in return. The warmth of his face nuzzles gently against your shoulder.

“...Sssafe…” He whispers. The word itself is just as surprising as the fact that Hera’s moving away, not once taking her eyes from you until she’s finally moved past the line of the bushes--perhaps back to her mate for more foraging?

Hell if you know what’s going on anymore. By all accounts and reason you really should be dead. Or at least, with the multitude of information and data gathered by great researchers before you--horribly mangled and almost morbidly wounded. And yet there isn’t a single scratch on you besides the ones you got from falling on your ass a couple times, which itself might actually be a little bruised.

“What the--” You begin, blinking and momentarily forgetting Joel’s presence to crawl over towards the edge of the nest. Hera’s long gone, far enough away that you can’t even make out her faint outline through the underbrush of the forest. “She was--she was going to kill me.”

“Yesss….” Comes a low hiss from behind you. Ah yes, Joel. When the majority of your fear has been replaced with curiosity, you slowly start attempting to collect the few dozen pages scattered on the ground near the nest.

Joel watches you curiously the entire time. His expression is genuine, and the only sounds he makes are low chitters and soft hums, and even then you’re not entirely sure if they are directed at you so much as the birds singing in the branches overhead. Almost...as if he’s singing to them in return. Odd.

The pages are crumpled, and several are ripped beyond being able to make out but a few words. But they are still notes, and perhaps you can use memory to make out some of the pages contents.

“...Joel,” you ask gently after a few moments, leaning down to pluck a page from a branch of the bush you fell through earlier.

His chittering stops almost instantly, turning to look at you with an attentiveness only had by Hera just before--without the underlying blood-lust, of course. The level of interest this Creeper has both for and with you is still beyond what you’ve ever managed to document. He looks at you as if you’re special, in a way that almost makes you think the positions are switched.

His eyes look fondly upon you as if you’re the one to observe and take notes on.

The fact that he saved you from certain death is exemplified even further by this interest, making you mumble for words as the papers are loosely organized in between your fingers. “Why didn’t...Hera--I mean, she was going to kill me.”

Creepers are intelligent creatures. Nobody has ever denied the fact that they possess a great level of logic and understanding. However, it’s never been documented as to how far their linguistic ability reaches--and at least as of your understanding Joel is the first to have some level of understanding for the english language. It means he has a grasp of sentience at best, or at least a simple sense of logic somewhere in that head of his. Either way--

“Kill, yesss. Hera confused.”

\--He’s a very interesting being. And really, it isn’t the first time he’s stopped you from getting hurt. It is however, the first time he’s stopped you from getting killed.

“Confused?” You inquire lightly, deciding that you can sit back down in the nest after most if not all the papers have been found and returned in some manner of piece/s.

Joel simply nods. His eyes close for a moment, and only then do you take into realization that he’s genuinely thinking about what he’s going to say.

“...Ssscared.”

“Of me?” You ask incredulously. Joel nods again, turning to look over into the forest in the direction that Hera had retreated.

“Ssstartled.” He clarifies lightly. “Bad….hiding ssspot.” Oh, well as if you already didn’t know that much. Terrible choice to observe much of anything, if both Joel and Hera could detect you so easily, and the latter could sneak up on you without having much notice.

The Creeper makes a sharp little chitter, just as the birds overhead take flight into the air above the tree line The flap of multiple wings echo through the forest for a few moments before finally dimming back into the silence of the gentle breeze of the afternoon. Both of you are without words for a time in this peacefulness, until finally it’s time to return to camp.

Joel protests as you step out of the nest, going as far as to grab one of your arms in one clumsy claw. After pulling out of his purposefully weak grip and stepping out of the nest, your body turns around; soft e/c eyes look at him gently.

“Hey,” You say, petting the top of his head for a few moments; his light layer of fur is soft to the touch, almost like . “I have to get back to my camp.” He starts making a low whining noise. “I’ll see you tomorrow alright? Promise, I’ll come back tomorrow morning.”

It’s one of the reasons you actually need to hide from him when on most trips like this--not because he’ll hurt you, but instead because you won’t get accurate observations since he’ll be following you everywhere. But since your cover’s been blown, it’s little use to continue it for the last day or two of your trip.

The whining continues even as you try to calm him with more reassuring promises, reminiscent of a small child. At one time you had taken these noises for honest despair, and on more than one occasion stayed an entire night with him in his colony (thus the reason that Hera and Tyler should at least somewhat recognize you). But you’re far too knowledgeable of his tricks to give in so easily--Joel will throw a tantrum like a child to make you give in.

You are far, far too fond of this Creeper for your own good as a scientist.

It’s only when you lean forward and press a kiss to his forehead (right above and between his eyes) that he begins to calm down. Those dark orbs look up at you.

“...I’ll be back tomorrow. I gotta try to salvage these pages tonight--see? These pages are--uh, they’re broken. I need to fix them first.” In fear he doesn’t understand what you’re trying to explain to him, you show him the pages in your hands--many of them torn and dirty.

You can almost feel his curious gaze moving over them. He reaches one clawed hand out to touch them, interested if anything, and barely traces a dark black claw over where the front page was almost torn right down the middle with them still being connected just at the bottom.  
His claw lingers for a moment over his name written down several times at the bottom. The fact doesn’t click with its importance until your brain until much, much later. Because before you’re able to look at anything other than the fact that he’s regarding the pages with some sense of understanding he’s pulling his arm back into his lap and you the pages back under and arm.

“....Tomorrow?” He asks after a few moments. A smile pulls across your face.

“Tomorrow.”

After one more kiss to his forehead (just because you simply can’t help yourself), you brush off the dirt from your clothes and start making your way back towards your camp.

You have a long night of deciphering, taping, and recording these notes in your laptop ahead of you.


End file.
